1st time meet children affected by Agent Orange

I've seen a lot of pictures, documentaries about these people but never meet them face to face before.

Actually, I was not shocked at all because these children in the village affected not as much as those I saw on newspapers and TV. This takes me back to the question of thầy Nam: Why this village no longer accept the children seriously affected? I asked anh Long but he has no idea.

However, after talking with anh Long, I think that I have some ideas.

According to anh Long, officially, the period for each child to stay in the village is only 3 years (as the director said), however, for those who can be trained (as weavers or something else) the period is extended until the training course finishes. [that answers for the 2nd question of thay Nam]. The point is that after being trained for a job (often craft), they will be "sent" back to homes. They come from different areas, mostly rural areas where the craft industry is underdeveloped and almost there is no organization to support them to find adequate jobs. Finally, it turns out that what the village can do is just merely share the "burden" with their families by bringing up and taking care of them for some years, so their families can save money and time [ i think so]. I think that this way of operating is kind of wasteful. They waste their resources to train people without orienting their future jobs. Because with their own ability, these children hardly can establish a craft organization [for example] themselves, neither they can find their trained skills usable in their remote hometowns.

So, I think something should be changed here. Maybe a shop to sell their craft products in Hanoi?

Back to the visit, I had chance to play with a girl who is 13 years old. She told me her name is Ba (or Va?), but other kids called her "Dung" [like mine]. It's hard to figure out what she said. When she asked for a "cái bút" to draw, I totally couldn't understand. Amazingly, Diane could. The way she sang the song "Cháu yêu bà"- a very popular kid's song- is like my 3 years old brother. Agent Orange did make a 13 year old girl became a kid who only can babble...